Traveling with Sports Teams

[linda]

My oldest child just made a traveling team for soccer and we are starting to spend weekends all over the place. I've watched my sister go all over the place with her children for various sports. She had some great tips for me as I begin this "phase" of life.

If you can't get a motell with a breakfast included, go to the market or a place like Costco and pick up bagels and cream cheese, orange juice, and some cereal. It's the cheapest possible way to do breakfast for a group. Buy some paper bowls, spoons, plates and napkins or paper towels in bulk and they should last for numerous trips. Eat around the pool or in the lobby - just ask permission first. Most places are happy to help.

Ask the motel or hotel if they have a BBQ and BBQ hamburgers and hot dogs. then have a buffet dinner so the kids can load their burger with all the fixings. And get some salad in bags and serve that too. It's another way for the kids to really save money.

When you go to a restaurant as a group, ask for one long table for the kids with just enough chairs for all of them. She found that helped make sure there were no lonely kids left with no one to sit with. If they order on separate checks and pay for themselves, tell the waitress to add a 18% tip to each bill. Kids just don't get tipping and it encourages the wait staff to agree to separate checks!

She found that kids were given food money by their parents. She collected a certain amount in the beginning of a trip to make sure there would be enough to cover. Sometimes kid would blow all their money on souvenirs and run out of money for food.

She also bought milk, cookies and bananas and passed them out at bedtime. It was a good way of making sure everyone was in their room and had a relatively healthy snack before bed.

She also did picnics around the pool or in the lobby for lunch and bought sandwich bread, sliced turkey, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, mayonaisse and mustard and let the kids build their own sandwiches and then got grapes and tangerines (she said tangerines were really popular!).

Her travel "kitchen" consisted of a plastic box with a couple of knives, can opener, small cutting board, big plastic serving spoons and forks, and then a couple of flexible cutting boards that can fit in the bottom of a suitcase. she also bought inexpensive coolers at their destination when they flew somewhere if the rooms didin't have refrigerators and kept them in the bathtub with the perishables.

[benji]

Agree that you should try to make your own food whenever possible. We also had luck using hotel lobbies and by the pool when the weather was good. But we made the kids help with the prep so they didn't feel like little kings and queens. And on the longer tournaments where you had to wash the kids socks and uniforms one parent brought safety pins and little pieces of white fabric and a sharpy pen to write the kids names on so we could keep track of the socks. It was kind of a pain but it worked.

[lauras]

Those are some very helpful ideas. We found making our own food to be very economical, too, for our traveling team. Half the kids on the team were on scholarships, so it was important to keep costs down.

There was always one person who headed the food planning, but many parents helped and we gave the kids jobs.

We found certain foods to be easy and popular - tangerines, oranges and bananas always got eaten, especially when some of the very bored parents peeled the citrus fruit for the kids.

Breakfast was always bagels and cream cheese, fruit, juice, milk and one kind of cereal.

Kids built their own sandwiches at lunch time around the pool, in the lobby or even in a hotel room when we couldn't get any other space.

If we flew to a tournament, we often bought a few cheap styrofoam cooler to keep things cold.

We made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead of handing out energy bars for the kids - much cheaper and more filling.

Kids were required to have their own large water bottle labeled with their name on it so they could refill it.

[farra]

Sefl catering is fine as long as you clean up after yourselves. I have done it a number of times in good hotels. As lng as they dont see you take stuff in the door (hide it in your bag) and they dont see crumbs all over all the tijme, then they dont really mind. However, smalle estabishments might be a little more offened. They often need you to eat there for them to make and money.

[lauras]

Don't sneak! Just ask the proprietor of the hotel/motel if you can use the lobby or pool area to have a team meeting and lunch or breakfast. We have found them to always be helpful. If they didn't want us in the lobby they suggested someplace else. We have also gone to nearby parks for picnic lunches or dinners/.

And of course you must clean up after yourselves. That is a given and a good lesson for the kids - we always made the kids clean up after themselves and then had work teams for other tasks.

[markgordano143]

Very useful suggestions, I am agree with you in substance.It can be considered very comprehensive & valid tips on such critical issue.

[goriideza]

quite a good stuff

[walker]

Thanks for this post.